This is a good move from Brin in my opinion, even though he can do little more than speak about the matter. There's nothing more dangerous to a stable democracy than a two party system. In Britain with more prominent parties (Even though only two really get elected) I still feel like my politics aren't being represented.
How naive of Brin to suggest this, and some might easily suggest that the best thing politicians can do is spednd their time sticking it to each other, that way they meddle less and avoid doing any real damage. Seriously though this post really shows how little Brin understands about how political systems work.
This. Competence in one field does not imply understanding in another.
Given Sergey's proclivities and interests, I'd say it behooves him to fund a "non-partisan" thinktank to look at the data and produce data-driven policy suggestions that are intended to influence all parties to government.
Not that I would suggest that he become too personally invested in what happens after the suggestions make into the legislature; that way lies pain.
I don't want politicians to denounce their political parties. Instead, I would rather see an adoption of elements of proportional representation into our political system.
For example, Party List PR[1] in the House of Representatives would provide an avenue for third parties to actually get elected on the national level. This may seem like an extreme example, in that it is highly unlikely to happen any time soon, but it is not an extreme system of voting. The German Bundestag, for example, combines a system of First Past the Post voting and Party List PR to achieve proportional representation in their legislature[2].
Even less extreme would be ditching the Electoral college, and moving to a Single Transferable Vote[3] for presidential elections. At least under these systems you're not "Throwing your vote away" when voting third party.
There is evidence that proportional systems of representation increase voter participation, and voter confidence. I would love to see prominent technologists espousing these sorts of changes.
I would also like to see the "Approval Voting" system being implement. It would make sure the politician that most people agree with the most, will get elected. It would also make it a lot easier for a 3rd party candidate to be elected president.
For example, if 45% would vote for Obama (Democrats), 45% would vote for Romney (Republicans), and each of those 2 factions would also vote for Gary Johnson in proportion of 30% each (out of total voters), then it would be Gary Johnson who would win the election, because he would have the support of 60% of the population, rather than 45% for Obama and 45% for Romney.
The reason this result would be more satisfactory for a larger portion of voters, is because more people actually approved of this candidate from both sides, instead of 45% approving Obama and absolutely hating Romney as a president, or 45% approving of Romney and absolutely hating Obama.
The winner would be the candidate that is liked or approved by the largest portion of the population, which leads to higher satisfaction for the voters after the election.
As an added bonus, because it creates more [viable] parties, it makes attack adds less effective: If you have one opponent, causing that opponent to lose a vote is just as good as gaining a vote for yourself. If you have two or more viable opponents then attacks against any individual opponent helps the remainder as much as you. And in that case, better to be positive about yourself than negative about the opposition.
I whole heartedly support replacing winner takes all with approval voting, which is easier to administrate, far more robust, and more fair. But that's a huge change. Fortunately, there are smaller, more beneficial changes we can do while working to replace winner takes all. (See other comment.)
In Germany we have a multi-party system and it works a little better than in the US but it's not a silver bullet either. After each election, the elected representatives vote for our chancellor (similar to the American president). Because we have so many parties and the two largest parties usually get only 20% to 40% of the vote, they need to form alliances with the smaller parties in order to gain a governing majority.
Sometimes our conservative party will team up with the liberals, sometimes our social democratic party will have to team up with a right-leaning party and sometimes the two big parties will even form an alliance.
This works fairly well, especially because each state government has a different set of governing parties so there's not as much bitterness and more people get to work together. That said, within each office, parties still consider themselves to be either governing or the opposition and fall into opposition mode for a few years, just like they do in the US.
It's worth nothing that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on who you are. By that, I mean that if you're part of government, it's a very good thing, since fewer parties generally means more government stability. Of course, that's quite likely to be bad for the general population.
I feel like I can't contribute much further than Yglesias did,
>Political partisanship is kind of like representative democracy itself—a terrible mess, but clearly superior to the alternatives. After all, we don't need to guess at what representative democracy without political parties would look like. Just examine almost any American city council—be it New York, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, whatever—and you'll see a legislative body that's so overwhelmingly Democratic that partisan politics don't drive outcomes. The result of this isn't a utopia of good government and sound policy, it's an orgy of hyper-localism.
>Political parties are organized, for better and for worse, around clashing visions of what's better for America. The quest for partisan advantage is, among other things, a quest for the opportunity to build a better society. Absent parties you get a situation where instead of a clash of visions of what would be best for the city as a whole, council members give undue preference to strong local interests. In city government, that means NIMBYism. In Congress it would mean endless gobs of the much-derided pork barrelling.
Because you're only beholden to the people who live in your ward, you only really have the interests of those specific 10-50 thousand people (less in smaller cities, more in larger ones) in mind.
This, it turns out, really harms the capacity for governments to make decisions that make everyone better off on average but might make any given small region of people unhappy (say, by building a powerplant or a garbage dump).
Of course, there are benefits to this kind of representation, and some kind of mix is always desirable - but the gist of it is people are more willing to make regionally-disinterested decisions if their interests are aligned across ideological rather than geographical lines.
"This, it turns out, really harms the capacity for governments to make decisions that make everyone better off on average but might make any given small region of people unhappy (say, by building a powerplant or a garbage dump)."
Can you explain why? I don't understand this. I would have thought that, for example, given a country of 50 districts, and the decision is being made "shall we build this dump in district 1", you'll get 49 voting yes and the representative of district 1 voting no.
But District 1's representative is chair of a committee you need to sweet talk in two months, and is maybe a tie-breaking vote for that other thing you want.
I'm not sure that was the best example. If you're talking about NIMBYism, there's generally some sort of veto power or capacity to obstruct involved.
The Congressional equivalent would be earmarks and pork. Not that we don't have quite enough of that already but the argument is that absent larger, more ideological themes and the parties' whips, it would be just about all we would have.
It's a case study of power dynamics inside the city of Aalborg with respect to a specific project and shows the influences of counties, businesses, and political climate on the result.
Not sure why Amazon doesn't seem to have it anymore... :(
The other argument for this is that the ability to have better control of your immediate community/district is really useful in avoiding or stopping decisions that can destroy or permanently harm those neighborhoods. Local politics reflects really well the kind of struggles localities and communities go through, even if sometimes NIMBY kicks in and leaves everyone worse off.
This is all hot air punditry. A 'no party' system is clearly different to a 'one party' system. Most notably because those elected still have the fear of being voted out next year...
Also - do you really think having everyone independent would result in fewer 'clashing visions of whats better'? You are likely to have as many as you do candidates, not 2 that are hardly different.
I'm not sure your example is an especially good one. Better is town meetings, which we are common in New England. While they have desirable features, they have the weakness that a small group that is very interested in a given outcome can dominate a much larger population of individuals who have weaker feelings. (Not a universally bad feature but it makes it easier for activists on a given issue to dominate an agenda.)
There are two important points to remember when it comes to political parties:
1. Political parties are brands. Just like buying a widget from Apple is done based on certain expectations based on the history of previous widgets, a political party instantly tells most voters what that person is for or against.
This is incredibly convenient to the vast majority of voters; and
2. The current state of politics in the US I think reflect's Hotelling's Law [1]. The parties have converged on the middle so they each get roughly half the vote. With such close elections and narrow balances of power in the House and Senate things are going to stay ugly.
Look no further than the current distribution of seats in the Australian House of Representatives [2] where the Gillard government clings to power with the support of 3 independents and 1 Green (76-74), a change of a single seat could change the government.
This has inevitably led to some bitter disputes [3] [4] that would be non-issues or much smaller issues if the government had a large working majority.
The problem with the US is not the electoral college or that only swing states matter (which largely misses the point). Popular vote deciding the president would be a fundamental change to the system that would (IMHO) ultimately lead to disaster when a close enough election repeated the turmoil of the 2000 Florida recount across the entire country.
The problem is that:
1. Voting isn't mandatory and the population is apathetic;
2. Voting is too hard being on a weekday and involving long waiting times. I would also argue that the long waiting times are symptomatic of (1). Partisan election officials have a vested interest in deterring or encouraging the vote in certain areas;
3. The FPTP (first past the post) system reinforces the two-party system whereas preferential voting systems allow "protest votes" without them being wasted or, worse, an effective vote for the other side;
4. Here's the big one: people are too predictable in how they vote. Of those that vote, 40% vote Democrat, 40% vote Republican and 20% decide the election. The Biggest electoral landslides in history (Reagan in 84 and Nixon in 72) have both garnered less than 60% of the popular vote.
This problem is so bad that in the redistricting process [5] there are maps produced of political persuasions that are used by the incumbent state government to redraw boundaries to maximize "their" Congressional delegation. This process is incredibly accurate because people are so predictable.
IMHO the choices in this election are pretty terrible. Romney, with his 47% and his "binders full of women" is a joke. Obama is the most IP-friendly and consumer and tech hostile president in history, from championing in secret a treaty (the original ACTA) that would've raised file-sharing to the level of terrorism and turned the FBI into the RIAA and MPAA's enforcement arm to filling the DoJ and judiciary with RIAA lawyers to his stance on software patents.
My advice? Given bad choices, which seem to abound, vote against the incumbent. The one thing politicians seem to fear is losing office with all the power and perks that come with it.
If this means you vote for a party you otherwise wouldn't, consider this: it's also important that your party doesn't take your vote for granted.
#1 is not a problem. The apathetic majority of the popluation not voting makes the votes of others (who are presumably less apathetic) count more.
#3 is the real problem. The Nash equilibrium for FPTP voting favors two strong parties due to strategic voting. Something as simple as approval voting greatly changes this dynamic. I assume that Sergey is aware of this, so I'm not sure what his comments are for.
Interestingly, the electoral college actually should help us here. States decide how they select their electors[1], and so if California says, "OH, we're going to select our electors with IRV, and direct them to vote based on the situation in the electoral college prioritizing candidates based on votes[2]", then that works. If we scrap the electoral college, then any change has to happen at the national level, or you're stuck trying to figure out what to do with a pile of IRV ballots from CA, a pile of range votes from NJ, and the FPTP votes from the rest of the country, and that seems just about intractable.
Actually, with races being close, I also wonder whether CA dividing its electors would get us more attention... The problem is that it favors whoever the majority doesn't like, in the short term.
[1] It must, now, be democratic; this wasn't always the case, though - many states originally had their legislatures choose.
[2] Obviously this language would be tightened up, but hopefully it's understandable.
Every known voting system that's deterministic and non-dictatorial is subject to strategic voting. This is fairly obvious, since a group's preferences can be non-transitive. For example, in a (very) hypothetical election with three voters who are also the three candidates, if A votes for B, B votes for C, and C votes for A (all based on their top preference), then clearly any one candidate can swing the vote to his or her second preference by voting for that instead.
Moreover, all voting systems have advantages and disadvantages, because many desirable traits of voting systems are mutually exclusive. Approval voting, for example, isn't even guaranteed to pick a candidate that is preferred by the majority of voters. Approval voting can also elect a candidate who would lose a head-to-head race against every other candidate. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_runoff_vo....
Just to clarify, is your rebuttal essentially: "No system is perfect, so we shouldn't investigate better systems?"
I personally like approval the best primarily because it is extremely simple. All systems that meat the Condorcet criteria are too complicated IMO.
It also has the advantage over IRV that the votes can be tabulated at each polling place, rather than needing to be done centrally, which means both fewer changes to the current polling system as well as lower impact of fraud.
> 2. Voting is too hard being on a weekday and involving long waiting times. I would also argue that the long waiting times are symptomatic of (1). Partisan election officials have a vested interest in deterring or encouraging the vote in certain areas;
Since I haven't seen this elsewhere in the tread, there are pretty significant gains to be had for allowing easy early voting. In fact, a number of US states already have significant early voting[1]. This is another simple way to increase participation that people should try to help promote on a local level.
My advice? Given bad choices, which seem to abound, vote against the incumbent.
It doesn't matter what your intention when voting is, what matters is, at the end of the day, your vote wil be interpreted as being FOR the non-incumbent rather than against the incumbent.
I would say given bad choices, vote for the independent who is going to lose anyway. They're expected to lose, but people will take notice and say "oh, wow, Joe Somebody was expected to only get 2% of the popular vote, but he ended up with 7%! Will you look at that!" In that case, your vote will be first seen as discontent with the main two choices (because you're making a (let's face it) losing vote) and only second to that, as support for the independent.
have both elected governors not endorsed by either of the two largest political parties in recent years, and there are members of the United States Senate
Maine is one of the few states where that's viable - as Nate Silver notes[1], it's probably the most independent-leaning state in the nation, as evidenced by its support for Ross Perot in the 90s. Rhode Island would be another, and I'd peg Colorado as a distant third.
Minnesota is an outlier in my mind - it's more attributable to the fact that the Republican candidate (Norm Coleman) was a terrible candidate (he only won his Senate seat because his opponent died right before the election[2]), and the race was irregular in other ways too. It happened once, but I wouldn't bet on it happening again there anytime soon, unless things change.
Those states probably have a much higher educational attainment level, civic engagement/consciousness and intelligence level than the rest of the United States.
They did not have to contend with having to vie for the vote of 300+ million people.
Also, elections for governor do not have to account for the Electoral College which IMO is an anarchic holdover from a time when communication was much harder.
If you've got two bad choices, look for more criteria.
How do you feel about civil rights? Whose economic approach is more likely to fix things? Is the legality of abortion and contraception important to you?
Choose the lesser evil today. Then work for a greater good tomorrow.
That sounds like a nice sound bite, but in reality, choosing the lesser evil today further cements the need to be choosing the lesser evil tomorrow.
I'm not from the US (and don't have a favored candidate), but I hear this rhetoric quite a lot. In each election, regardless of allegiance, we hear that this particular election is too important to throw away a vote by voting independent. After all, we don't want another Gore/Nader!
I've always wondered; in exactly which of the previous 56 elections would it have been OK?
I suspect the real answer for the majority of lesser evil types (and I'm not saying you are in this boat) is along the lines of: back when the Whigs were in power.
Having the option of a negative vote could fix that. If we had a negative vote option I don't believe Bush would've won in 2004. Negative voting could instantly give independents a much better chance. People who want to vote against a candidate won't feel like they're throwing their vote away.
Basically, you still have only one vote, but you can use that to cast a negative vote against a candidate, rather than a positive one for a candidate.
It's the simplest way to break the monopoly of two parties because a negative vote against a major candidate has the exact same practical effect as a positive vote, but without perpetuating the two-party system. Best of all, those who are afraid of change can vote with a positive vote in exactly the same way they have in the past, with the same effect.
Here's the big problem with that idea: someone still has to win. Therefore you should vote for the candidate who you think deserves to win. If you don't think any of the candidates deserve to win, then that's a problem... but it's not a problem that "negative voting" solves.
IIUC a negative vote would subtract a vote from a candidate instead of adding. In theory, if enough people vote negatively for the two big parties, a third one could arise and perhapas surpass them after gaining enough traction.
Imagine Alice, Bob, and Eve are running for president. My main concern is keeping is keeping Eve out. As for Alice and Bob, they have their pros and cons, but at the end of the day I don't care too much either way and both are much better than Eve. In this scenario a negative vote for Eve would be more in line with my desires than flipping a coin and choosing between voting for Alice or Bob.
Why not mandatory govt service then? Similar to how mandatory jury duty helps accomplish the aims of the judiciary and actual or the threat of mandatory military service used to make the citizenry keenly aware of foreign policy of administrations, wouldn't mandatory service in the executive branch make the public keenly aware of the actions of the legislative?
Voting isn't mandatory and the population is apathetic;
Optional voting is a feature, not a bug. It ensures that the people who care most wield the most influence. If they collectively take the rest of the (apathetic) population astray, more people will start to care and swing the country in a different direction. There's a term for this kind of self-correcting system, but it escapes me right now.
Regardless, changing to mandatory voting would do absolutely nothing to solve voter apathy. It could theoretically have the opposite effect, as now the people who care deeply have less influence because their votes are watered down by people who only vote to avoid a fine.
I like that it's optional, but it would be cool if the US made election day a holiday as a way to increase turnout a bit. Everybody is distracted anyhow.
Mandatory voting cuts both ways. It would require fixing the many things that prevent people from voting in the USA: making the day a holiday, fixing voter registration, getting enough manpower that the wait is reasonable everywhere, for starters.
In Australia we have "mandatory" voting. But actually it is only mandatory that you turn up -- you can deliberately vote "informal" if you don't actually want to cast a vote, and many people do just that (5.5% in the last federal election, although probably more like 2.5-3% of these are deliberate refusals to vote).
This is my preferred system. To me, you don't want to absolute force people to vote. But you do want to remove the bias that exists because turning out to vote is easier for some people than others (and it tends to be easier for the more privileged). Other factors help too: e.g. polling is on the weekend.
Re: apathy, the solution is not to ignore the disenfranchised, but to engage them. True representation is not about suiting those with the most free time and energy.
As a former manager of mine said (paraphrasing): having to vote once every several years is a small inconvenience to endure for getting to live in such a well off country.
Dare I also say that with the 'mandatory voting', growing up I felt as though people were more engaged in politics... including children.
Because they had to 'vote' (maybe "because they had to voice an opinion one way or another") people seemed to be more likely to take an interest in politics and actually learn about what was actually going on.
That's the way I see it, at least: people in Australia seemed to be more knowledgeable about politics than people seem to be here in Canada at least.
Why? People have been voting third party for more than a hundred years and it hasn't worked. The duopoly is still in power, ignoring you with impunity. All you're doing is giving up your chance to affect the election.
If you want more options the only way to get them is electoral reform. First we need to get rid of the electoral college so your vote matters even if you don't live in Ohio. The way to achieve this is to get your state to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Then, we need to start holding runoff elections when no candidate gets 50%, so you can vote third party without throwing away your vote.
American democracy isn't efficient, and it seems like it was the design plan. Fundamentally there is a buffer between the electorate and the actual election (it's called the electoral college.) Then fundamentally, most issues are never voted on by the electorate and because of that, it kind of rare that they are voted on at all. Every election "abortion" comes up but when is the last time the US senate has actually voted on it?
There are things to make it more 'efficient' but again, the slowness with which things happen is kind of a feature, they tend to stick better when they do happen. Look back, we didn't re-enslave people. We did have the prohibition but overall the constitution hasn't been retouched that much.
There are also sets of fundamentally unsafe issues: abortion, maybe birth control (oddly, I thought that one was sort of settled but there are a vocal minority that seem to be offended by its very concept) and anything that cuts entitlements. Short of a booming growing economy, I think it might be safe to say the US budget won't be "balanced" until the baby-boomers die off as it just might not be a realistic goal, never mind the debt. You can't touch those unsafe issues without taking huge political risk
Don't get me wrong, if those issue affect you personally it sure does suck, but the design is for slow change. The dichotomies it presses, such as if you are against abortion, by proxy you are also don't accept climate change, among other things. That's the incredibly frustrating part.
I believe it was Chuck D that said "neither party is mine, not the jackass or the elephant"
As many have done before. The end result is you either end up just like them or you're out in two years for having accomplished literally nothing (if you don't act like the other representatives they won't work with you and you'll end up having accomplished nothing so your constituent will vote you out at the next opportunity).
If you've got two "bad choices" don't vote for the lesser of the evils, it still lends legitimacy to a candidate that you don't approve of. Its the same as a ringing endorsement.
What about this: the general population has neither the time nor the interest to really examine and make a fully informed choice about each presidential candidate and the implications of each one's ascendancy. As such, the population should directly elect "electors" (that is, members of the Electoral College), whose job it will be to study each candidate and make the best choice on behalf of the people they represent. Candidates for president will not campaign directly to the people, but their elected electors. Electors would campaign to be directly elected.
The people may be able to contribute an "advisory" popular vote, but it won't matter, similar to the situation regarding the election of U.S. Senators prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment.
While the Electoral College still exists, it has been completely neutered in practice, and currently only represents a rough approximation of the popular vote; most states have laws obligating electors to vote along with the popular votes these days, and I know of no states where electors are directly elected by the people (they are usually elected on party slates).
I question the judgment/intellect of anyone who affiliates with one of the major two parties in the US.
I don't think parties themselves are necessarily a problem, but the US system has converged on a two-party equilibrium that is destructive to the democratic process.
In the UK, only 1% of the electorate are members of a political party. Or put another way: "between them the three main parties now have fewer members than the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds"
I care enough about politics to know who I'm voting for but not enough to go out and campaign for the party I'm voting for, are people that are members of a party the people that put up signs in their windows and the like? What is a "member" of the conservative party? Does someone just sign some paper or do they pay money to support the party, or commit to helping campaign?
This is just my take on it; I don't think there anything wrong with the notion of a political party. It's just a bucket under which like-minded people can group together.
My problem with politics is that politicians seem to be more focused on politics rather than governance. It's the back-stabbing, lying and foul mouthing that I start to detest more and more as I get older.
A lot of young politicians start their career out with a lot ideals and will to chance the world they live in. But then they grow up a little and suddenly they have a young family to look after. Their ideals chance and what comes out of their mouths slowly starts to turn into "blah" simply saying what people want to hear. I.e. politics. Their once good intentions slowly turn into self interest.
I think the first thing that any sane democracy should do is to take away the self interest among politicians. I would say that if someone decides to go into politics that this person can have no ties and interests to the commercial world what so ever. Not sure how this would exactly work in the real world but I think it could do some good to our political system.
yup, good point but i'm not sure sergey would be encouraging google employees to quit google and take up an open source project as readily as he's calling politicians to do so. my comment is a little trolly, just find it peculiar that a person who heads up a massive organization encourages other folks not to be part of other massive organizations. I agree with him, partisan politics is bad, just as bad as corporate droning (which i'm not sure he would agree with).
Many people agree that there are many problems with first past the post voting. IMO, that's an artefact of voting districts. With modern technology, it's possible to make our representative democracy truly representative.
During an election, you give your proxy to anybody who is willing to be a representative. Each representative votes in Congress with a vote weighted by the number of proxies they received. The top 500 or so representatives get to sit in Congress. Those who didn't reach the threshold must pass their proxy on to another.
Nobody is no longer "represented" by somebody they didn't vote for. You can be represented by somebody who much more closely matches your interest. "Districts" will still be represented because many people will choose a local candidate, but everybody is free to choose someone who will represent them better if no local candidate does.
This won't eliminate political parties, but it will significantly weaken them as strong representatives will no longer be as dependent on the party machinery.
Liquid Democracy is basically direct democracy with a flexible proxy capability. My proposal is proxy only.
Liquid Democracy also does away with fixed election dates and embraces a continuous process. I deliberately didn't talk about that in my proposal. I think too many people get hung up on the continuous process part, which I think is much less important than proxy voting combined with the removal of districting.
IOW, my proposal is a toned down version of Liquid Democracy.
I'm curious: is there any otherwise "fair" voting system that is less representative than "first past the post voting"?
It's obvious it was chose for the US because they had ZERO knowledge of game theory and it was the best they could come up with at the time.
But given that we now know how to do representative democracy that's actually, you know, representative, it does make me wonder if the US is actually provably using the worst "fair" voting system we actually know how to build.
And if it is, you'd think it'd be possible to get the states to pass a constitutional amendment changing it (which would then go to congress – yes, it's in reverse, but the two-party system will NEVER vote themselves out without an overwhelming public display of opinion on the matter, IMO).
Ever heard how they do it in Switzerland? They have several national referenda each year, directly voting on issues of federal importance.
I'm afraid this works well only due to the small size of the country. OTOH their democracy is 800+ years old. Modern technology could scale popular voting to larger populations.
I like your idea, but given that the technology is in reach: why not just get rid of representation entirely? We need a method for generating new law proposals and then just people vote directly on those from their own homes rather than voting for some person who may or may not vote for you in the way they claim they will.
The problem is the idea that a single elected official can somehow represent the entire United States. Can one person understand and represent 300 million people?
Impossible.
At least, impossible on a deep level. Such understanding is possible only in a very general level, for issues that are very broad.
Therefore, government should be as small, localized, and focused as possible. As much power as possible should be invested at the local level.
A lot of Europeans don't get this. European countries are already small and homogeneous (apologies for a huge generalization). They already have a fairly local government. The USA needs to work differently because it's the third most populous country in the world and because it's so enormously diverse. Government should be as close to the people as possible. Then if you don't like your municipality or state, you can move a few miles away to get a different municipal / state government.
I'm much more concerned about electing people whom I've met personally and had the chance to interact with at a town hall. Grass roots movements are much more effective at understanding people in a deep way. From a conservative perspective (my perspective), the Tea Party is a movement that has had great success enforcing accountability and toppling incumbents. There are similar movements in other political camps as well.
Here's the point: localized government increases freedom and choice. It puts local government in a position where it has to compete with other governments (municipal or state). That kind of competition can potentially squeeze out corruption and increase accountability.
This is why our ~530 senators and representatives are important - they are also supposed to represent our interests. Then each state has a governor and state senators and representatives. And each state is divided into counties, which usually have a county chairman and county council. Additionally, cities usually have a mayor or director and a city council.
> The problem is the idea that a single elected official can somehow represent the entire United States. Can one person understand and represent 300 million people?
He's not actually supposed to.
The President has two essential jobs: (1) administrating and executing the laws he signs from Congress and (2) being the country's spokesperson to the rest of the world. To actually do these jobs, he presides over the vast bureaucracy that is the federal government. Sometimes his speech involves bombs; other times, it's more diplomatic.
The idea that such a person should be representative of yourself is silly. I don't want to talk to Iran; that's why I elect a President to do it for me.
Read Article 2 of the Constitution. It says nothing about representation, or anything like it.
Also because of the laws passed under 1) in perhaps the most important duty, the President, according to the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, must submit a budget to Congress each year. IMHO, this is where the line gets fuzzy as taxation and representation are inexorably linked.
I don't think your conclusion follows from this claim:
The problem is the idea that a single elected official can somehow represent the entire United States. Can one person understand and represent 300 million people?
This x1000. I'd go one step further and not use force at all (or at least have the option not to), but I would still take your idea any day over the current structure.
#1 - We have two political parties in the USA because of our winner takes all form of elections. No matter how big the pie, two sides will each attempt to form the smallest winning coalition.
#2 - Anything that weakens the political parties strengthens the monied interests. The American experiment has always been wealth vs democracy. Bad as our parties are, plutocracy is worse.
This may change with the rise of issues-based political organizations.
#3 - In the USA, we vote on everything, and we are not homogeneous. My local Republicans would be considered Democrats else where.
#4 - Don't be distracted by the party politics. Reforms which would most improve our democracy, in order, are:
a) Fair redistricting, meaning maximal competitiveness, minimal incumbency protection.
b) Universal voter registration, just like every other western democracy.
c) Public financing of campaigns.
d) Restore the fairness doctrine.
That's pretty much it. A good start. Everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
(I've got a separate list for election integrity reform.)
There is an error in the paraphrasing, Sergey Brin is not calling for all politicians to abandon their political parties. He is suggesting the "victors" to withdraw from their party affiliation while they are governing. There is a big difference.
I think you are correct. Many people seem to not be bothering what he wrote. That being said, I don't really understand this post at all. He recognizes and dislikes the game mechanics involved in political brinkmanship, and then thinks somehow there is any competitive human endeavor that does not involve one? Why not use mathematics to find a better mechanic more suitable to a goal? For example, absolute or adaptive term limits.
Simply renouncing party affiliation leads to Bloomberg style manipulation of the electorate's party affiliations. Some people (most) prefer that the actions and abuses of one elected official will most likely reflect on the entire party in the next cycle. Complicated.
As stated here, 2 party system is corrupt and self-destructive. When you listen to Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, you hear rational people talking about real problems and real solutions.
*
I urge EVERYONE who is not in a battleground state to vote 3rd party, so that the news covers them more, and more voters hear their positions. This is the soft way to break the duopoly. The only other way I know involves bloodshed.
I'm sympathetic to Sergey's views but I'd think he of all people would understand the utility of political parties as huge marketing machines. The DNC and GOP have a) eyeballs/audience which leads to b) donors/money.
Although imperfect, there is some substance in this analogy
Political Parties:Elections::Search Engines:Online Marketing
I think that a Liberal vs Conservative two party system is inevitable in any large group. This assumes that most humans fall into broad liberal (counts on government, believes in helping the poor, open to new ideas) or conservative (dislikes taxes, believes in personal responsibility, likes free markets and the past) modes of thinking.
Sooner or later, the smaller groups on one side are going to realize that they can push elements of their agenda further if they all vote together. They might not get all of the things that they wanted, but they'll gain more leverage over the people who have a drastically different world view. Once this has happened, all of the people of the other mode of thinking will realize that they now have to band together in order to compete. And wallah, parties are formed.
The problem this presents to american voters is that a vote for a third party is effectively a vote for the other side of the ideological divide. Every vote cast for Garry Johnson is directly aiding the cause of Barack Obama. I bet Al Gore hates Ralph Nader to this day. The idea of "what will happen if the other side wins?" is a very real motivating factor in the voting booth.
I'm not defending the two party system. I'm saying that like free markets, it's an emergent property of human behavior. Working together with common cause is the best way to get something done, even if it means associating yourself with a group of people that you don't entirely agree with.
I'd rather not have politicians making the decisions at all. Why do I need to pick someone who poorly represents my views and will probably vote against my interests, when I could easily vote on actual issues.
We'd still need executives, but legislature should be reduced to putting bills before the people.
> Why do I need to pick someone who poorly represents my views and will probably vote against my interests
This. I'M not in the US, so copyright laws are less of an issue here, but even without that number of times I find myself thinking that this system sucks is over the threshold. I mean all politicians act like they voters agree with everything they do because you voted for them even if what they're doing is the exact opposite of what you thought they'd be doing.
You were so close. Instead of voting, why don't people actually decide what happens amongst each other? Some people could use voting if they want. Another group of people could use a different method. But because force is involved, we're never given the chance to find out. It's complete vendor lock in. It's like being forced to use Internet Explorer 6... for hundreds of years. Sorry for the wild analogy, but using IE 6 for hundreds of years sounds pretty painful.
Ah, coercion, of course. The bug-bear of libertarians everywhere.
I'm fine with it, personally. Even many libertarians are when it comes down to it, an awful lot seem believe in collective enforcement of property rights....
> Why do I need to pick someone who poorly represents my views and will probably vote against my interests, when I could easily vote on actual issues.
That's a great idea! In fact, I can see a business opportunity for an enterprising individual (or group of individuals, as it may be) under such a system: one could assemble a team of advisors who would analyse and debate legislation in order to decide on an optimal outcome for the country. Their advice could then be given to paying subscribers, who would vote in accordance with it, and thus pass legislation which benefits the country. If the subscribers disagree with the advisors, then they could subscribe to a different team of advisors after a period of time, and use that team's advice. This way, the subscribers get the benefit of deciding the country's future without the hassle of having to deeply analyse issues each-and-every time a new piece of law comes up. This is especially beneficial if they are not knowledgeable in or care little about a given field, but do not wish to leave legislation of that field to a small, entirely self-selected group of individuals (democracy is about representing the interests of the whole, after all).
Yes, I've got the basics all sorted out. To paraphrase Phil Karlton, the hard part is thinking up a name for the damn thing! I was thinking something edgy and retro like "The Parliament" or perhaps "Congress", but I'm open to other suggestions as well.
Err, no, that's not what I was thinking of at all. You're still wedded to the idea of political parties and representatives.
Maybe some people would do what you suggest. Others would not.
If you fundamentally disagree with direct democracy then that's fine, but painting at as no different from representative democracy, in which a person has no direct say, is just wrong.
So are we complaining about the electoral college or the two party system? Way to smudge together two very important, but separate issues.
I would argue that the problem in the US is that the two party system is too weak, not too strong, especially at the Federal level. More party discipline would mean majorities would drive through meaningful legislation that would create real change and make voters understand that the one thing they won't get (like today) is inertia due to partisan politics. Today there's very little party discipline in Congress so all legislation becomes multi animal sausage and no one ends up liking the watered down and confused taste.
Hey while we're making ridiculous claims that will never happen let me call on all billionaires like Sergey Brin to give away 99.999% of their money to charity immediately, not wait until they're 60 and realizing their only legacy is being an asshole.
Can I suggest creating a new party? There must be enough Republicans sick of being associated with the Tea party, and enough Democrats who would quite like to be able to pass a law, any law, that a centrist counter balance would be quite feasible, and play the part of kingmaker.
You mean - a third party? :) Several people have had this idea - one of them actually appears to be getting a respectable portion of the vote this time. Generally speaking, it hasn't caught on.
It is not in the interest of any politician that wants their agenda to be successful to abandon political parties. Political parties were created to serve a purpose: People who believe their view of the world is right band together to increase their chance of changing things to fit their world view.
Even if they were to all abandon political parties tomorrow, they would still have their allegiances and their respective world views and would seek to forge alliances to push their agendas. The end result would be the same.
He should look instead to a voting system that so dramatically favour a strongly polarized two party system.
143 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadThis is a good move from Brin in my opinion, even though he can do little more than speak about the matter. There's nothing more dangerous to a stable democracy than a two party system. In Britain with more prominent parties (Even though only two really get elected) I still feel like my politics aren't being represented.
Given Sergey's proclivities and interests, I'd say it behooves him to fund a "non-partisan" thinktank to look at the data and produce data-driven policy suggestions that are intended to influence all parties to government.
Not that I would suggest that he become too personally invested in what happens after the suggestions make into the legislature; that way lies pain.
Also the posts also shows how little the writer understands what Sergey wrote. Read the G+ post.
For example, Party List PR[1] in the House of Representatives would provide an avenue for third parties to actually get elected on the national level. This may seem like an extreme example, in that it is highly unlikely to happen any time soon, but it is not an extreme system of voting. The German Bundestag, for example, combines a system of First Past the Post voting and Party List PR to achieve proportional representation in their legislature[2].
Even less extreme would be ditching the Electoral college, and moving to a Single Transferable Vote[3] for presidential elections. At least under these systems you're not "Throwing your vote away" when voting third party.
There is evidence that proportional systems of representation increase voter participation, and voter confidence. I would love to see prominent technologists espousing these sorts of changes.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_represe...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestag_(Germany)#Distributio...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
For example, if 45% would vote for Obama (Democrats), 45% would vote for Romney (Republicans), and each of those 2 factions would also vote for Gary Johnson in proportion of 30% each (out of total voters), then it would be Gary Johnson who would win the election, because he would have the support of 60% of the population, rather than 45% for Obama and 45% for Romney.
The reason this result would be more satisfactory for a larger portion of voters, is because more people actually approved of this candidate from both sides, instead of 45% approving Obama and absolutely hating Romney as a president, or 45% approving of Romney and absolutely hating Obama.
The winner would be the candidate that is liked or approved by the largest portion of the population, which leads to higher satisfaction for the voters after the election.
http://electology.org/approval-voting
AV vs IRV (for those wanting to see the IRV system being applied):
http://electology.org/approval-voting-vs-irv/
Sometimes our conservative party will team up with the liberals, sometimes our social democratic party will have to team up with a right-leaning party and sometimes the two big parties will even form an alliance.
This works fairly well, especially because each state government has a different set of governing parties so there's not as much bitterness and more people get to work together. That said, within each office, parties still consider themselves to be either governing or the opposition and fall into opposition mode for a few years, just like they do in the US.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvergers_law
>Political partisanship is kind of like representative democracy itself—a terrible mess, but clearly superior to the alternatives. After all, we don't need to guess at what representative democracy without political parties would look like. Just examine almost any American city council—be it New York, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, whatever—and you'll see a legislative body that's so overwhelmingly Democratic that partisan politics don't drive outcomes. The result of this isn't a utopia of good government and sound policy, it's an orgy of hyper-localism.
>Political parties are organized, for better and for worse, around clashing visions of what's better for America. The quest for partisan advantage is, among other things, a quest for the opportunity to build a better society. Absent parties you get a situation where instead of a clash of visions of what would be best for the city as a whole, council members give undue preference to strong local interests. In city government, that means NIMBYism. In Congress it would mean endless gobs of the much-derided pork barrelling.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/06/sergei_brin_h...
Any chance someone could make this statement more concrete? It's terribly important to his argument, but it's taken as an article of faith.
This, it turns out, really harms the capacity for governments to make decisions that make everyone better off on average but might make any given small region of people unhappy (say, by building a powerplant or a garbage dump).
Of course, there are benefits to this kind of representation, and some kind of mix is always desirable - but the gist of it is people are more willing to make regionally-disinterested decisions if their interests are aligned across ideological rather than geographical lines.
Can you explain why? I don't understand this. I would have thought that, for example, given a country of 50 districts, and the decision is being made "shall we build this dump in district 1", you'll get 49 voting yes and the representative of district 1 voting no.
The Congressional equivalent would be earmarks and pork. Not that we don't have quite enough of that already but the argument is that absent larger, more ideological themes and the parties' whips, it would be just about all we would have.
http://www.amazon.com/Rationality-Power-Democracy-Practice-M...
It's a case study of power dynamics inside the city of Aalborg with respect to a specific project and shows the influences of counties, businesses, and political climate on the result.
Not sure why Amazon doesn't seem to have it anymore... :(
Also - do you really think having everyone independent would result in fewer 'clashing visions of whats better'? You are likely to have as many as you do candidates, not 2 that are hardly different.
1. Political parties are brands. Just like buying a widget from Apple is done based on certain expectations based on the history of previous widgets, a political party instantly tells most voters what that person is for or against.
This is incredibly convenient to the vast majority of voters; and
2. The current state of politics in the US I think reflect's Hotelling's Law [1]. The parties have converged on the middle so they each get roughly half the vote. With such close elections and narrow balances of power in the House and Senate things are going to stay ugly.
Look no further than the current distribution of seats in the Australian House of Representatives [2] where the Gillard government clings to power with the support of 3 independents and 1 Green (76-74), a change of a single seat could change the government.
This has inevitably led to some bitter disputes [3] [4] that would be non-issues or much smaller issues if the government had a large working majority.
The problem with the US is not the electoral college or that only swing states matter (which largely misses the point). Popular vote deciding the president would be a fundamental change to the system that would (IMHO) ultimately lead to disaster when a close enough election repeated the turmoil of the 2000 Florida recount across the entire country.
The problem is that:
1. Voting isn't mandatory and the population is apathetic;
2. Voting is too hard being on a weekday and involving long waiting times. I would also argue that the long waiting times are symptomatic of (1). Partisan election officials have a vested interest in deterring or encouraging the vote in certain areas;
3. The FPTP (first past the post) system reinforces the two-party system whereas preferential voting systems allow "protest votes" without them being wasted or, worse, an effective vote for the other side;
4. Here's the big one: people are too predictable in how they vote. Of those that vote, 40% vote Democrat, 40% vote Republican and 20% decide the election. The Biggest electoral landslides in history (Reagan in 84 and Nixon in 72) have both garnered less than 60% of the popular vote.
This problem is so bad that in the redistricting process [5] there are maps produced of political persuasions that are used by the incumbent state government to redraw boundaries to maximize "their" Congressional delegation. This process is incredibly accurate because people are so predictable.
IMHO the choices in this election are pretty terrible. Romney, with his 47% and his "binders full of women" is a joke. Obama is the most IP-friendly and consumer and tech hostile president in history, from championing in secret a treaty (the original ACTA) that would've raised file-sharing to the level of terrorism and turned the FBI into the RIAA and MPAA's enforcement arm to filling the DoJ and judiciary with RIAA lawyers to his stance on software patents.
My advice? Given bad choices, which seem to abound, vote against the incumbent. The one thing politicians seem to fear is losing office with all the power and perks that come with it.
If this means you vote for a party you otherwise wouldn't, consider this: it's also important that your party doesn't take your vote for granted.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotellings_law
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Austr...
[3]: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/2012/10/09/australian-...
[4]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news...
#3 is the real problem. The Nash equilibrium for FPTP voting favors two strong parties due to strategic voting. Something as simple as approval voting greatly changes this dynamic. I assume that Sergey is aware of this, so I'm not sure what his comments are for.
Actually, with races being close, I also wonder whether CA dividing its electors would get us more attention... The problem is that it favors whoever the majority doesn't like, in the short term.
[1] It must, now, be democratic; this wasn't always the case, though - many states originally had their legislatures choose.
[2] Obviously this language would be tightened up, but hopefully it's understandable.
Moreover, all voting systems have advantages and disadvantages, because many desirable traits of voting systems are mutually exclusive. Approval voting, for example, isn't even guaranteed to pick a candidate that is preferred by the majority of voters. Approval voting can also elect a candidate who would lose a head-to-head race against every other candidate. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_runoff_vo....
Maybe, but there's the matter of to what degree.
"Moreover, all voting systems have advantages and disadvantages, because many desirable traits of voting systems are mutually exclusive."
True, but that shouldn't stop us from optimizing as best we can.
I personally like approval the best primarily because it is extremely simple. All systems that meat the Condorcet criteria are too complicated IMO.
It also has the advantage over IRV that the votes can be tabulated at each polling place, rather than needing to be done centrally, which means both fewer changes to the current polling system as well as lower impact of fraud.
Since I haven't seen this elsewhere in the tread, there are pretty significant gains to be had for allowing easy early voting. In fact, a number of US states already have significant early voting[1]. This is another simple way to increase participation that people should try to help promote on a local level.
[1] http://wordpress.reed.edu/earlyvoting/commentary/early-votin...
It doesn't matter what your intention when voting is, what matters is, at the end of the day, your vote wil be interpreted as being FOR the non-incumbent rather than against the incumbent.
I would say given bad choices, vote for the independent who is going to lose anyway. They're expected to lose, but people will take notice and say "oh, wow, Joe Somebody was expected to only get 2% of the popular vote, but he ended up with 7%! Will you look at that!" In that case, your vote will be first seen as discontent with the main two choices (because you're making a (let's face it) losing vote) and only second to that, as support for the independent.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
This is not an invariant property of the United States electoral system. Minnesota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura
and Maine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King
have both elected governors not endorsed by either of the two largest political parties in recent years, and there are members of the United States Senate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_S...
who were elected in statewide elections without major party endorsement.
Minnesota is an outlier in my mind - it's more attributable to the fact that the Republican candidate (Norm Coleman) was a terrible candidate (he only won his Senate seat because his opponent died right before the election[2]), and the race was irregular in other ways too. It happened once, but I wouldn't bet on it happening again there anytime soon, unless things change.
[1] http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/in-maine...
[2] To Coleman's credit, John Ashcroft ran against a dead man and lost, so I guess Coleman had something going for him.
He lost to the dead man's wife, who the voters knew would take that seat even if the ballots couldn't be reprinted in time.
Also, elections for governor do not have to account for the Electoral College which IMO is an anarchic holdover from a time when communication was much harder.
How do you feel about civil rights? Whose economic approach is more likely to fix things? Is the legality of abortion and contraception important to you?
Choose the lesser evil today. Then work for a greater good tomorrow.
I'm not from the US (and don't have a favored candidate), but I hear this rhetoric quite a lot. In each election, regardless of allegiance, we hear that this particular election is too important to throw away a vote by voting independent. After all, we don't want another Gore/Nader!
I've always wondered; in exactly which of the previous 56 elections would it have been OK?
I suspect the real answer for the majority of lesser evil types (and I'm not saying you are in this boat) is along the lines of: back when the Whigs were in power.
Don't vote for an arbitrary non-incumbent who may well be a worse politician.
Basically, you still have only one vote, but you can use that to cast a negative vote against a candidate, rather than a positive one for a candidate.
It's the simplest way to break the monopoly of two parties because a negative vote against a major candidate has the exact same practical effect as a positive vote, but without perpetuating the two-party system. Best of all, those who are afraid of change can vote with a positive vote in exactly the same way they have in the past, with the same effect.
Here's the big problem with that idea: someone still has to win. Therefore you should vote for the candidate who you think deserves to win. If you don't think any of the candidates deserve to win, then that's a problem... but it's not a problem that "negative voting" solves.
Optional voting is a feature, not a bug. It ensures that the people who care most wield the most influence. If they collectively take the rest of the (apathetic) population astray, more people will start to care and swing the country in a different direction. There's a term for this kind of self-correcting system, but it escapes me right now.
Regardless, changing to mandatory voting would do absolutely nothing to solve voter apathy. It could theoretically have the opposite effect, as now the people who care deeply have less influence because their votes are watered down by people who only vote to avoid a fine.
Instead, require employers to give their employees 3 hours off during the day, or something like that.
O Canada! http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq...
This is my preferred system. To me, you don't want to absolute force people to vote. But you do want to remove the bias that exists because turning out to vote is easier for some people than others (and it tends to be easier for the more privileged). Other factors help too: e.g. polling is on the weekend.
Re: apathy, the solution is not to ignore the disenfranchised, but to engage them. True representation is not about suiting those with the most free time and energy.
Because they had to 'vote' (maybe "because they had to voice an opinion one way or another") people seemed to be more likely to take an interest in politics and actually learn about what was actually going on.
That's the way I see it, at least: people in Australia seemed to be more knowledgeable about politics than people seem to be here in Canada at least.
The duopoly is the true incumbent so, in this case, vote for a third party.
If you want more options the only way to get them is electoral reform. First we need to get rid of the electoral college so your vote matters even if you don't live in Ohio. The way to achieve this is to get your state to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Then, we need to start holding runoff elections when no candidate gets 50%, so you can vote third party without throwing away your vote.
American democracy isn't efficient, and it seems like it was the design plan. Fundamentally there is a buffer between the electorate and the actual election (it's called the electoral college.) Then fundamentally, most issues are never voted on by the electorate and because of that, it kind of rare that they are voted on at all. Every election "abortion" comes up but when is the last time the US senate has actually voted on it?
There are things to make it more 'efficient' but again, the slowness with which things happen is kind of a feature, they tend to stick better when they do happen. Look back, we didn't re-enslave people. We did have the prohibition but overall the constitution hasn't been retouched that much.
There are also sets of fundamentally unsafe issues: abortion, maybe birth control (oddly, I thought that one was sort of settled but there are a vocal minority that seem to be offended by its very concept) and anything that cuts entitlements. Short of a booming growing economy, I think it might be safe to say the US budget won't be "balanced" until the baby-boomers die off as it just might not be a realistic goal, never mind the debt. You can't touch those unsafe issues without taking huge political risk
Don't get me wrong, if those issue affect you personally it sure does suck, but the design is for slow change. The dichotomies it presses, such as if you are against abortion, by proxy you are also don't accept climate change, among other things. That's the incredibly frustrating part.
I believe it was Chuck D that said "neither party is mine, not the jackass or the elephant"
...get fired up, quit your job, and go into politics.
Democrat or republican? I vote no.
The people may be able to contribute an "advisory" popular vote, but it won't matter, similar to the situation regarding the election of U.S. Senators prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment.
While the Electoral College still exists, it has been completely neutered in practice, and currently only represents a rough approximation of the popular vote; most states have laws obligating electors to vote along with the popular votes these days, and I know of no states where electors are directly elected by the people (they are usually elected on party slates).
I don't think parties themselves are necessarily a problem, but the US system has converged on a two-party equilibrium that is destructive to the democratic process.
http://www.economist.com/node/21559901
What happens as party membership continues to decline? At what point does it become farcical?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/06/british-democracy-d...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/06/politics...
http://www.conservatives.com/Get_involved/Join.aspx
My problem with politics is that politicians seem to be more focused on politics rather than governance. It's the back-stabbing, lying and foul mouthing that I start to detest more and more as I get older.
A lot of young politicians start their career out with a lot ideals and will to chance the world they live in. But then they grow up a little and suddenly they have a young family to look after. Their ideals chance and what comes out of their mouths slowly starts to turn into "blah" simply saying what people want to hear. I.e. politics. Their once good intentions slowly turn into self interest.
I think the first thing that any sane democracy should do is to take away the self interest among politicians. I would say that if someone decides to go into politics that this person can have no ties and interests to the commercial world what so ever. Not sure how this would exactly work in the real world but I think it could do some good to our political system.
During an election, you give your proxy to anybody who is willing to be a representative. Each representative votes in Congress with a vote weighted by the number of proxies they received. The top 500 or so representatives get to sit in Congress. Those who didn't reach the threshold must pass their proxy on to another.
Nobody is no longer "represented" by somebody they didn't vote for. You can be represented by somebody who much more closely matches your interest. "Districts" will still be represented because many people will choose a local candidate, but everybody is free to choose someone who will represent them better if no local candidate does.
This won't eliminate political parties, but it will significantly weaken them as strong representatives will no longer be as dependent on the party machinery.
Liquid Democracy also does away with fixed election dates and embraces a continuous process. I deliberately didn't talk about that in my proposal. I think too many people get hung up on the continuous process part, which I think is much less important than proxy voting combined with the removal of districting.
IOW, my proposal is a toned down version of Liquid Democracy.
I prefer approval voting, which is very easy to administrate.
It's obvious it was chose for the US because they had ZERO knowledge of game theory and it was the best they could come up with at the time.
But given that we now know how to do representative democracy that's actually, you know, representative, it does make me wonder if the US is actually provably using the worst "fair" voting system we actually know how to build.
And if it is, you'd think it'd be possible to get the states to pass a constitutional amendment changing it (which would then go to congress – yes, it's in reverse, but the two-party system will NEVER vote themselves out without an overwhelming public display of opinion on the matter, IMO).
Free will is great way to avoid stagnation if we were to but use it.
Why even have representatives, just let everyone vote on every issue directly via their Hacker News login?
I'm afraid this works well only due to the small size of the country. OTOH their democracy is 800+ years old. Modern technology could scale popular voting to larger populations.
Impossible.
At least, impossible on a deep level. Such understanding is possible only in a very general level, for issues that are very broad.
Therefore, government should be as small, localized, and focused as possible. As much power as possible should be invested at the local level.
A lot of Europeans don't get this. European countries are already small and homogeneous (apologies for a huge generalization). They already have a fairly local government. The USA needs to work differently because it's the third most populous country in the world and because it's so enormously diverse. Government should be as close to the people as possible. Then if you don't like your municipality or state, you can move a few miles away to get a different municipal / state government.
I'm much more concerned about electing people whom I've met personally and had the chance to interact with at a town hall. Grass roots movements are much more effective at understanding people in a deep way. From a conservative perspective (my perspective), the Tea Party is a movement that has had great success enforcing accountability and toppling incumbents. There are similar movements in other political camps as well.
Here's the point: localized government increases freedom and choice. It puts local government in a position where it has to compete with other governments (municipal or state). That kind of competition can potentially squeeze out corruption and increase accountability.
He's not actually supposed to.
The President has two essential jobs: (1) administrating and executing the laws he signs from Congress and (2) being the country's spokesperson to the rest of the world. To actually do these jobs, he presides over the vast bureaucracy that is the federal government. Sometimes his speech involves bombs; other times, it's more diplomatic.
The idea that such a person should be representative of yourself is silly. I don't want to talk to Iran; that's why I elect a President to do it for me.
Read Article 2 of the Constitution. It says nothing about representation, or anything like it.
Also because of the laws passed under 1) in perhaps the most important duty, the President, according to the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, must submit a budget to Congress each year. IMHO, this is where the line gets fuzzy as taxation and representation are inexorably linked.
The problem is the idea that a single elected official can somehow represent the entire United States. Can one person understand and represent 300 million people?
This is why we have a Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvergers_law
#2 - Anything that weakens the political parties strengthens the monied interests. The American experiment has always been wealth vs democracy. Bad as our parties are, plutocracy is worse.
This may change with the rise of issues-based political organizations.
#3 - In the USA, we vote on everything, and we are not homogeneous. My local Republicans would be considered Democrats else where.
#4 - Don't be distracted by the party politics. Reforms which would most improve our democracy, in order, are:
a) Fair redistricting, meaning maximal competitiveness, minimal incumbency protection.
b) Universal voter registration, just like every other western democracy.
c) Public financing of campaigns.
d) Restore the fairness doctrine.
That's pretty much it. A good start. Everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
(I've got a separate list for election integrity reform.)
Independents (whether politicians, startups, or any organization that isn't big) are always cash strapped and in pursuit of a voice.
Here is his original post,
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SergeyBrin/posts/B9VnJXd6Rir
Simply renouncing party affiliation leads to Bloomberg style manipulation of the electorate's party affiliations. Some people (most) prefer that the actions and abuses of one elected official will most likely reflect on the entire party in the next cycle. Complicated.
Although imperfect, there is some substance in this analogy Political Parties:Elections::Search Engines:Online Marketing
Sooner or later, the smaller groups on one side are going to realize that they can push elements of their agenda further if they all vote together. They might not get all of the things that they wanted, but they'll gain more leverage over the people who have a drastically different world view. Once this has happened, all of the people of the other mode of thinking will realize that they now have to band together in order to compete. And wallah, parties are formed.
The problem this presents to american voters is that a vote for a third party is effectively a vote for the other side of the ideological divide. Every vote cast for Garry Johnson is directly aiding the cause of Barack Obama. I bet Al Gore hates Ralph Nader to this day. The idea of "what will happen if the other side wins?" is a very real motivating factor in the voting booth.
I'm not defending the two party system. I'm saying that like free markets, it's an emergent property of human behavior. Working together with common cause is the best way to get something done, even if it means associating yourself with a group of people that you don't entirely agree with.
We'd still need executives, but legislature should be reduced to putting bills before the people.
This. I'M not in the US, so copyright laws are less of an issue here, but even without that number of times I find myself thinking that this system sucks is over the threshold. I mean all politicians act like they voters agree with everything they do because you voted for them even if what they're doing is the exact opposite of what you thought they'd be doing.
That's what government is.
I'm fine with it, personally. Even many libertarians are when it comes down to it, an awful lot seem believe in collective enforcement of property rights....
That's a great idea! In fact, I can see a business opportunity for an enterprising individual (or group of individuals, as it may be) under such a system: one could assemble a team of advisors who would analyse and debate legislation in order to decide on an optimal outcome for the country. Their advice could then be given to paying subscribers, who would vote in accordance with it, and thus pass legislation which benefits the country. If the subscribers disagree with the advisors, then they could subscribe to a different team of advisors after a period of time, and use that team's advice. This way, the subscribers get the benefit of deciding the country's future without the hassle of having to deeply analyse issues each-and-every time a new piece of law comes up. This is especially beneficial if they are not knowledgeable in or care little about a given field, but do not wish to leave legislation of that field to a small, entirely self-selected group of individuals (democracy is about representing the interests of the whole, after all).
Yes, I've got the basics all sorted out. To paraphrase Phil Karlton, the hard part is thinking up a name for the damn thing! I was thinking something edgy and retro like "The Parliament" or perhaps "Congress", but I'm open to other suggestions as well.
Maybe some people would do what you suggest. Others would not.
If you fundamentally disagree with direct democracy then that's fine, but painting at as no different from representative democracy, in which a person has no direct say, is just wrong.
At the moment it's so much that even the pople voting on it can't read all that much.
I would argue that the problem in the US is that the two party system is too weak, not too strong, especially at the Federal level. More party discipline would mean majorities would drive through meaningful legislation that would create real change and make voters understand that the one thing they won't get (like today) is inertia due to partisan politics. Today there's very little party discipline in Congress so all legislation becomes multi animal sausage and no one ends up liking the watered down and confused taste.
It is not in the interest of any politician that wants their agenda to be successful to abandon political parties. Political parties were created to serve a purpose: People who believe their view of the world is right band together to increase their chance of changing things to fit their world view.
Even if they were to all abandon political parties tomorrow, they would still have their allegiances and their respective world views and would seek to forge alliances to push their agendas. The end result would be the same.
He should look instead to a voting system that so dramatically favour a strongly polarized two party system.